Cold in the Shadows
By: Toni Anderson“Airline lost my luggage.” Killion raised his palms in a pitiful shrug, putting enough misery into his travel-worn appearance that the woman’s expression immediately shifted from disgust to empathy.
“That blows. How long ago?”
“Two days now. They swear they’ll get it to me sometime today—”
She gave a disbelieving snort. “Yeah, they once lost my luggage on a trip to Mexico and by the time it arrived I was getting on the plane home. Worse, they refused to reimburse all the clothes I needed to buy…”
Off she went, and he was in. Phase one of this mission accomplished. He walked into the conservatory as part of a group of American tourists, rather than as a single white guy traveling alone. They milled loosely about, looking at Lepidoptera specimens that fluttered about like giant-sized pieces of confetti.
A family of seven—five women who all looked like they’d rather be at the mall, an older man, and a teen who read every piece of information like he was cramming for a test. Killion stayed close to the stacked redhead because he looked like the kind of guy who’d stay close to a stacked redhead, but he also chatted to the others in the group, gleaning information. They were down from Florida, visiting family over Christmas. The Americans had arrived in a large minivan with an armed driver, but the driver stayed with the vehicle so they weren’t too worried about security. In this country, staying in one spot for any length of time meant you attracted attention—and not the, “Oh my, don’t you have pretty eyes” kind of attention.
It wasn’t a good thing.
Hot sun bore down on the forest canopy that shaded the ecological park. The small interpretive center affiliated with the Amazon Research Institute attracted local schools as well as the occasional tourist, but it was Monday, January 5 and schools were closed until after Epiphany. The place was deserted except for this little band of intrepid explorers. The ground steamed and sweat beaded on his skin as his adopted people wandered slowly from enclosure to enclosure. A rivulet of perspiration soaked into his shirt.
A huge yellow butterfly drifted over his head and landed on a piece of cut fruit on the feeder tray. The redhead barely contained her squeal of excitement and took twenty pictures with her little point-and-shoot. Killion’s point-and-shoot dug into his spine and held fourteen rounds. Their group finally headed into the amphibian enclosure where decaying damp earth mixed with traces of ammonia, and the musk of rotten leaves.
Welcome to the jungle.
His new friend grabbed his arm, pointed. “Aren’t they cute!” A minuscule, neon-yellow frog was stuck on the side of a glass tank.
“They may look cute”—said a familiar voice with just the barest hint of a Kentucky twang—“but one golden poison dart frog contains enough toxin to kill ten-to-twenty grown men.” Dr. Lockhart wore spectacles on a string around her neck and reminded him of the class nerd—the one all the guys had secretly lusted after but had been too intimidated to ask out on a date. The professor had unusual violet-blue eyes that showed clear signs of a sleepless night. He would have felt guilty, but more than one person had told him he was a heartless bastard who didn’t have a conscience. A sociopath by any other name.
He didn’t give a shit, so they were probably right. Hell, she should be thanking him. Being tied up and threatened sure beat the hell out of a trip to a Black Camp or a lifetime in prison—and those were the more civilized options.
Audrey Lockhart wore ubiquitous jeans over Birkenstocks and a tight white tank top that molded her breasts in a way that left little to Killion’s undeniably vivid imagination, all topped off with a thin purple shirt that she left open. She wasn’t carrying a weapon—unless she had a frog in her pocket. “I’m Dr. Lockhart, I study anurans and my specialty is the family Dendrobatidae—poison dart frogs.”
For all intents and purposes she appeared to be exactly what she said. A scientist, dedicated to her research. He rarely trusted appearances. That’s what data analysts, surveillance, and background checks were for—not to mention interrogation.
“I thought captive ones weren’t poisonous?” Killion pointed to a little guy about an inch long that was sitting at a precarious angle on a large green leaf. The creatures didn’t look real—they looked like miniature plastic toys. They certainly didn’t look like the deadliest creatures on the planet. He placed his hand lightly on the redhead’s back, and she sank against him, proving her taste in men was as terrible as his taste in clothes.
